


Treasure Hunt

by BlackBirdAolen



Category: Tales of Phantasia
Genre: Hunt, M/M, challenge, treasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBirdAolen/pseuds/BlackBirdAolen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Competitive as always, Cress and Chester decide to turn the upcoming hunt into a challenge.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://ask.fm/BlackBirdAolen">Got a fanfic idea for me?</a><br/><a href="http://cheroshseiphar.deviantart.com/">My deviantART - full of original fiction.</a><br/><a href="http://blackbirdaolen.tumblr.com/">Snippets and ramblings on my tumblr.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Treasure Hunt

"Are you ready, Cress?" Chester grinned broadly, readying his bow and checking on his arrows again. "It will be another long day, after all. We better have enough gels and other medicine. It won't be easy with Mint away to help out another cleric."

It was a rather warm day in the rebuilt village of Miguel. The sounds of hammers still were heard all over the place. Currently, every day was marked by building, tending to new patches of soil, and fortifying the already existing houses. Even with Dhaos gone for good, it was important to be alert in case monsters would be sighted. Those regrettably still were a problem for the villages, but it was just like that.

"I think I have everything." Cress went through their backpacks again, just to be perfectly sure. "We even have ingredients to mix some more gels. I guess we are as prepared as we could possibly be."

Chester nodded in approval. He wanted everything to be perfectly prepared. They would have a rather long hunting trip ahead of them, and they better not messed this up. Their last hunt had been rather unsatisfying. Cress knew that they didn't need to care for the whole village regarding the supply of fresh meat, but it never hurt to have something.

Cress picked up his blade, smiling to himself. He was quite ready. He didn't want to keep on standing around for much longer, but he still felt a little nervous. Mint always was a nice reassurance, and she was always a very good support in any kind of fight, but her absence didn't make a hunt impossible. It just gave him a certain sense of nervousness.

"Is something the matter?" Chester looked mildly confused about Cress's behavior. "You aren't nervous, right?"

"No no," Cress quickly, and quite flustered, replied. "We should just get going. The sooner we leave, the faster we will get to thin out the hordes of monsters."

Chester smirked in his usual smug, condescending fashion, which made Cress's face turn bright red. His childhood friend knew, of course, about how deep Cress's and Mint's relationship had become. Then again, it was hard to miss out on it in the first place. Their relationship had gently developed and budded over the course of their fight against Dhaos and his hordes of minions. And it had resulted in such an honest love, it had been simply adorable.

Cress still was slightly embarrassed when they left the village, but at least, he soon enough was completely occupied with watching their surroundings. It was sometimes quite tricky to spot the monsters in the thick foliage of the woods. They better remained extra careful, else they would end up having to cut their adventure short.

"What do you think we will find today, Chester?" Cress cautiously worked his way along the narrow paths leading into the heart of the woods. While it looked complicated at first, it was rather easy for them to navigate through the thick bushes. "It's always a surprise, isn't it."

"Sometimes a rather nasty one, too." Chester grinned wickedly. "Could be a ginormous spider. Or a really stinky treant."

Cress bit his lower lip to not laugh. It was sort of a neverending joke between them that they would surely come across those two monsters. Why they had come up with that in the first place was a bit of a mystery. They never really had wondered about it, and by the time they had started to, they had all but forgotten about the exact origin of this strange joke.

The sun was shining brightly, making it easy to find their path. Cress smiled to himself, enjoying the fresh smell of the woods, the earthy notes carried on the pure air which had been recently washed by rain. It was really perfect like that. Though they still would need to hunt and fight at any given moment.

"It's incredible how bright it is today." Cress sighed quietly. "It makes me feel just a little strange. It was a bright day back then, too."

"It was." Chester caught up to him, and they were nearly touching shoulders while walking now. "Bright and wonderful."

"A lot has happened since. It's good to see the village built anew, and new people filling the streets. It's just a little strange to know that time has gone by so quickly."

"As though as it just had been last week when we set out?" Chester smiled lightly, though it was laced by a bit of sadness. "I think we are having the same trouble here. It's alright though. No need to worry about it too much. It's still not time to completely stop grieving."

Cress breathed in and out deeply, then smirked. He was still determined to be better than Chester today. While Chester had the advantage of range on his side, Cress was damned quick on his feet.

Soon enough, they readied their weapons. Cress could hear the rustling in the thick of the woods, and Chester was already scanning their surroundings. The archer had almost impeccable eyesight, though he at times had to admit he might be a little too erratic to take full advantage of his senses.

"Sometimes, I wonder if anything changed at all." Chester grumbled a little, finally starting to make good use of his arrows. "I thought the monsters were supposed to become less of a nuisance after a while."

"Well, they were always there, I suppose. Dhaos doesn't necessarily control them, as I understood it." Cress fended off a small horde of goblins. "But it would be pretty boring without them!"

They both laughed, then started to systematically work their way through the monsters. It took them quite a while to kill the last of them, and by that time, they both felt a little roughed up. But it was nice to find quite some relatively valuable things, most likely stolen from traveling merchants, or even concocted by the monsters themselves. They were rather predictable in battle, but that surely didn't mean they were dumb.

"Alright, that's a rather solid start." Chester snickered. "We'll have way too much stuff on us again."

Cress laughed and nodded in agreement. But that wasn't bad at all. Everything to help the village grow. And if it meant that it would be built on minor things like scales and fangs from monsters.


End file.
